York schools 1st in province to face walkouts

Walkouts planned

York Region public elementary schools are expected to be the first in the province hit by rotating walkouts.
York president David Clegg said the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario (ETFO) executive has informed him one-day teacher walkouts will begin in the York board the week of Dec. 10, the same day his members will begin withdrawing field trips, extra-curriculars and class excursions.
The local union was also the first to begin work-to-rule action.
Thursday, elementary teachers began ramping up actions, refusing to attend meetings (excluding IPRCs — a special education meeting), arriving no earlier than 30 minutes before the start of class and leaving no later than 30 minutes after.
The region’s 3,000 high school teachers began job sanctions Friday.
“With Bill 115, the government has placed unreasonable barriers before the union and the board, blocking any chance of achieving a locally suitable deal through a respectful bargaining process,” York OSSTF president Colleen Ireland said.
“Despite our collective efforts to show savings and to offer a wage freeze, the minister refuses to remove the restrictions that would allow local bargaining as per the Ontario Labour Relations Act.”
Teachers will be in class teaching, she said, and continue to intervene to ensure student safety.
Parents may not notice the mostly administrative job withdrawals in secondary schools, but that may soon change; high school unions meet Monday afternoon in Toronto to decide if they will join their elementary colleagues on the picket line.
While York’s Catholic teachers have expressed disapproval with the deal their union leaders reached with the separate board, they are not in a strike position and the region’s Catholic schools will not be impacted by the job action.
ETFO president Sam Hammond said he will provide 72 hours public notice before a school walkout, adding every public elementary school in the province will be impacted during the month of December.
Education Minister Laurel Broten said a strike is not in the best interest of children and while controversial Bill 115 doesn’t ban strikes, it does give her the tools to intervene.
As some students share their jubilation on social media over the prospect of an early holiday, parents are expressing frustration and confusion over the looming chaos.
“There has got to be a better way to do this, other than using kids,” said Tracy Willoughby, a Richmond Hill mother who is increasingly disturbed by the labour strife.
“It’s punishing kids for an adult situation. They’re using the kids because they know parents will do everything it takes to keep them happy and healthy in school, but kids don’t have any say in this and neither do parents.
“This is not just about trying to find a babysitter for our kids.”
She worries about students at high schools such as Bayview Secondary, which her older child attends, missing out on the benefits of sports, and her younger son, who attends Crosby Heights Public School, losing the extra help he needs.
She is also upset to see the $50 fee charged to high school students for extra-curricular activities go to waste.
“I understand teachers are upset about the cuts that are being done, but they’re not the only working people being told they’re losing some of the benefits and perks of their job.”
On one of several teacher Facebook sites campaigning against Bill 115, someone describing herself as a single, sole-support parent expressed similar concern about the walkout: “I’ve been supportive of you and your rights. Who’s going to support me if you strike? Truly, who will take care of my nine-year-old so I can go to work and earn money to pay my taxes?”
Teachers on the site responded that many of them are in the same boat, but believe the issue of bargaining rights is worth the inconvenience.
By the time job action steps up in elementary schools and all extra-curriculars are scrapped, most fall sports teams will have wrapped up, Mr. Clegg said. Holiday concerts, however, may be in jeopardy and that may be the flashpoint for some parents, Newmarket mother Gwyneth Anderson said.
“It seems there’s not a lot of information out there,” she said. “I hope people get educated and don’t just decide what they think based on snippets in the news.”
She has family members who are teachers and is an active volunteer at Bogart Public School and is dismayed to hear parents blame teachers.
“It seems everyone hates the teachers, and whenever there’s a labour dispute they’re blamed for being whiney,” she said. “They are one of the most disrespected, hardworking group of professionals there is.
“I believe the government could have done way more cost-cutting elsewhere. They’re really hanging teachers out to dry. It’s awful that it’s come to this.”
Board spokesperson Licinio Miguelo said administrators will communicate with parents when the escalating actions approach.
It’s too soon to say if schools will remain open, he said, but student safety will be the prime concern.
“We have contingency planning,” he said. “We anticipate several scenarios and we’re prepared for that.”
The most up-to-the-minute communication is available to parents by following @yrdsb on Twitter, he said.